Page 65 of Heartbreak Prince

I turn my back to him and continue up the trail. The scuff of his boots pursues me, but he doesn’t speak again.

By the time we pass the first few cottages of Weaver’s Canyon, the snowfall has thickened. By tomorrow morning, it will have covered the trail and rendered it dangerously impassable. We got here just in time.

We move farther into the village, shrouded in our cloaks and hoods. I peek out from beneath the shelter of my hood occasionally, looking for an inn, a pub, a tavern, any gathering place where we might find shelter and food. Up ahead, I spot a log building lit up with so many lamps that it glows like an amber fireplace in the blue of the snowy evening.

“There.” I point ahead, then pull my fingers back into the cloak. “Let’s head for that one.”

The sign, blurred by falling snow, proclaims the place to be “Barclay’s Tavern.” We duck onto the large porch before the entrance, and as we stamp the snow from our boots, I scan the area, including a notice board by the front door.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“What?” Vawn follows my gaze. “Oh, shit.”

Nailed to the notice board is a poster emblazoned with Vawn’s face, drawn with all its striking angles and smirking beauty. And beneath the sketch is a price.

I stare at the number, trying to comprehend that amount of money. Trying to quantify it in terms of what I could do with it. The things I could buy. A house, two full glyph sets, and so much more.

“You should do it,” Vawn says.

I throw him a glance, but his face is so deeply shadowed beneath the hood that I can’t read his expression. He is a fugitive cloaked in darkness, while his image smiles with vicious clarity from the poster.

“That’s ‘fuck you’ money,” he says softly. “That’s ‘change your life forever’ money.”

“You think I would turn you in?”

“You stared at it long enough. I thought you might be considering it. After all, they’re not planning to kill me, at least not right away. That’s what we heard from the assassin in Zeletas, right? They want me alive. I’m useful, somehow. Maybe for my gift, maybe for my heritage. Maybe for certain royal secrets.”

“They’re willing to hurt you in order to catch you,” I say. “And they put no value on my life at all. So no, Vawn, I will not give you up to be a prisoner, a slave, or a pawn. We can’t linger here. I need to hide you, and then I must find someone to repair the carpet. My face isn’t on the poster—they’re not looking for me. So I’ll put you somewhere safe, and then I’ll take care of Severin. Come on.”

Finding a safe place to hide Vawn, one where he won’t freeze to death overnight, is more difficult than I anticipated. My first thought is a stable, but Weaver’s Canyon doesn’t have many of those. Its people travel above the forests and mountains, not through them.

Desperate, I lead the prince up a steep, narrow lane bordered by quaint little houses. One of them has a sign tacked to the fencepost of its tiny garden, a sign which bears one word: “Rooms.”

“Here.” I tow Vawn along the path, through the whirling snow. We pause at the door, and I peek under his hood. “You shouldn’t have shaved this morning. A little scruff might have helped disguise you.”

“I hate scruff. It itches.”

“Such a baby. I’ll go in first and see if there’s a room available. Maybe the proprietor won’t look closely at us, or maybe I can smuggle you into the house later.”

“Before I freeze.”

“Yes, preferably before then.”

Vawn steps away from the door and sets his back to the wall, his hooded head bowed against the snowstorm. I rap sharply and wait.

Moments later, a thin woman appears, holding a curious toddler back with one hand. “Yes?”

“Do you have a room available? My brother and I need a place for the night.”

“Travelers? At this time of year?” She frowns. “Did you come by carpet?”

If I tell her we walked most of the way, she’ll get suspicious, so I nod. “Yes, we did. But we had an accident, and our carpet was damaged. We were hoping someone here could repair it. We’ll pay, of course.”

“Oh, yes.” Her face brightens. “Please come in. I can give you a room, and I’m a licensed carpet repair technician.”

I know that light in her eyes. It’s the hunger of a desperate woman who finally sees hope ahead, much closer than she expected.

“Wonderful. Just one more thing—my brother has a large scar on his face and he’s very self-conscious about it, so please don’t think him rude if he keeps his face covered. And he doesn’t speak. He was kicked in the face by a horse as a child, and he has never been quite right since then. He needs quiet and privacy.”